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- Thread starter James Stevenson
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A-Symmetry Sage is dead, long live Asymmetry Sage!
For those unfamiliar with the re-balance, Asymmetry Sage is now the exact same card but with 1 less toughness.
I like the art less, but might make the switch as I was starting to think 3 toughness was a little annoying to deal with.
There are some other interesting cards to come out of Alchemy's last hurrah, but most aren't as paper ready as this one.
It feels like this should've just been a prepared creature.
This feels reasonably paper-ready, but I feel like an infinitely recastable uncounterable 7/7 for
if you manage to self-mill enough is a tad excessive.This feels incredibly reasonable compared to Urza's Saga.
If you're willing to just steal a card from villain and stick it into your discard pile, this is reasonably paper-ready.
To be a pedant, Gemstone Caverns.
Only if we also get "Jace's", "Ajani's", "Koth's", etc as land types to go with them.
I'm still waiting on "Urza's Memorial", a Planeswalker Land - Urza's Urza.
Dammit. Sure, being a 0/3 was a bit annoying sometimes, but the card needed it. I'm not too willing to run it as a 3/2, but it may be my knee-jerk reaction.A-Symmetry Sage is dead, long live Asymmetry Sage!
For those unfamiliar with the re-balance, Asymmetry Sage is now the exact same card but with 1 less toughness.
I like the art less, but might make the switch as I was starting to think 3 toughness was a little annoying to deal with.
We have always wanted a Gruul artifact payoff, well, we have one, perhaps two interesting ones now:
Conjure is not too annoying, you can keep a random assortment of cards for them, either from the cube or just a curated selection. For example:
It seems to require a lot of mana before it does anything, though.
We also have this "leaves the graveyard" buildaround, which is quite more powerful in UB than it is in WR:
I like the color-switched Vendilion Clique. The slot in blue is much more crowded than in black so it's interesting:
If this weren't three cards on a trenchcoat, I would like it. I like what it does, I don't like how many pieces it takes to do it.
This is pretty much useless, but it's funny.
Potential Horizon is a good design, note that it can fetch duals, not just basics.
Of all the "Verbed NounNoun" cardnames in this game, I think Avoided Stairwurm might be the least coherent.
I think these are the best Alchemy cards they've ever printed. There are some really cool cards that work just fine in paper with just asking the players to be sensible, and some digital-only designs that are actually sick as hell and justify being digital-only. Many of the ones I've seen
I've never wanted a Secret Lair of these cards with the Acorn symbol more.
Oko, Lord of the Fae is a card I'd kill to play in paper, and am quite keen on just printing out anyways. It compares reasonably to Ajani, Outland Chaperone and I'm ok with the creature being a -1 ability since it's double the size. The static ability is great to make the -1 not feel so bad, and also alludes to super friends in a way I find appealing. Look, the -7 is almost never going to get used. I think it's easy enough to have an Oko pile to the side that gets used maybe once every other draft of a bunch of random planeswalkers, and that sounds extremely fun.
Valgavoth, the Lifeline makes me so mad, because I'd kill for this ability just with the second ability. A 2/4 flier for 3 that lets you cast creatures from your graveyard whenever you gain life? That's exactly what my Cube is trying to do. I don't need the perpetual ability here to feel like this is a solid Cube card. I hope they make a paper equivalent of this at some point, this is a great combination of abilities and stats.
Jace's Saga is no Urza's Saga, but peoples' deep familiarity with the OG makes this much less complex in practice. I know, I know, conjure is not quite making a token, but if I make a version of this card with reminder text, Jace's Sentinel is a pretty simple card, at least. I'm already a big fan of Empower Jace, and honestly, I'd rather have that than grabbing a <2MV artifact as the third ability here.
I love Avoided Stairwurm. You could definitely just run it in paper and use the honor system. I definitely would. The issue is it's not actually that good? The decks that are creature-light really benefit from not having things to point removal at. However, the fact that it's an artifact creature makes it a little easier to squeeze in. Would I play this if it were a 2/2 menace for 1? Not really, right? Because that's just not a very good creature if you're not following it up with very many other creatures beyond tokens / things planeswalkers drop. Still, love the design, this is what Alchemy should be about (good riddance all the same).
I've recently complained about card theft in Cube and how often it can get messed up. If you trust your players more than I do, Bend Mortal Limits is an ideal Cube card as written. Just move the exiled card into your graveyard. Man, that's so cool. That's an ideal discard spell other than not actually triggering discard abilities. Will run this once I start accepting theft in my Cube, which is coming.
Boisterous Clique is way better than Vendillion Clique, which is good because I recently had to take Clique out. It's also better in Black, honestly. I'd almost always rather make my opponent get a Mind Stone on turn 3+ than a normal card, even if they can just cash it out quickly. Really, it's pretty close to being printed as-is.
Sparks Ablaze is a great shock variant. The memory issues aren't terrible, and it signifies a big red walker strategy.
Etali, Primal Garden is silly. It think it's totally fine without the Actualize ability, which in Cube is often going to be flavor text anyways. It feels like a good green companion to the red Etali, Primal Conqueror in function. It captures the randomness/fun, and I'd definitely play this over something like Titan of Industry. I think it's slightly worse, sure, but way more exciting. Obviously not as good as Vaultborn Tyrant, but in a Cube of my size, I can handle more a few 7-drops in the color that loves 7-drops.
The issue is playing with it basically amounts to playing with a custom card for the wrangling you have to do in person. With 219 dinosaurs in Magic, it's not practical to have literally all of them, but a sideboard of 25 or so representative dinosaurs in their own unique sleeves is not that bad and it's really fun for a top-end card. But again, now it feels like we're playing with custom cards. I don't mind so much if there's an official WotC version of it printed out, but I'm a bit hesitant to do it myself still.
@LadyMapi is 100% right, this should have just been a prepared creature, and if it were, nearly every one of us would have been beyond stoked to include it in our Cubes.
Potential Horizon is the most busted of the cards in this set, and the best fetch land they've ever printed. The small rule about "not asking players to remember who went first on later turns" is so inconsequential and not that hard to remember, even if you're not planning on having to remember it, that I just want them to print this card. Print it now, WotC. Give me the Secret Lair.
I've never wanted a Secret Lair of these cards with the Acorn symbol more.
Oko, Lord of the Fae is a card I'd kill to play in paper, and am quite keen on just printing out anyways. It compares reasonably to Ajani, Outland Chaperone and I'm ok with the creature being a -1 ability since it's double the size. The static ability is great to make the -1 not feel so bad, and also alludes to super friends in a way I find appealing. Look, the -7 is almost never going to get used. I think it's easy enough to have an Oko pile to the side that gets used maybe once every other draft of a bunch of random planeswalkers, and that sounds extremely fun.
Valgavoth, the Lifeline makes me so mad, because I'd kill for this ability just with the second ability. A 2/4 flier for 3 that lets you cast creatures from your graveyard whenever you gain life? That's exactly what my Cube is trying to do. I don't need the perpetual ability here to feel like this is a solid Cube card. I hope they make a paper equivalent of this at some point, this is a great combination of abilities and stats.
Jace's Saga is no Urza's Saga, but peoples' deep familiarity with the OG makes this much less complex in practice. I know, I know, conjure is not quite making a token, but if I make a version of this card with reminder text, Jace's Sentinel is a pretty simple card, at least. I'm already a big fan of Empower Jace, and honestly, I'd rather have that than grabbing a <2MV artifact as the third ability here.
I love Avoided Stairwurm. You could definitely just run it in paper and use the honor system. I definitely would. The issue is it's not actually that good? The decks that are creature-light really benefit from not having things to point removal at. However, the fact that it's an artifact creature makes it a little easier to squeeze in. Would I play this if it were a 2/2 menace for 1? Not really, right? Because that's just not a very good creature if you're not following it up with very many other creatures beyond tokens / things planeswalkers drop. Still, love the design, this is what Alchemy should be about (good riddance all the same).
I've recently complained about card theft in Cube and how often it can get messed up. If you trust your players more than I do, Bend Mortal Limits is an ideal Cube card as written. Just move the exiled card into your graveyard. Man, that's so cool. That's an ideal discard spell other than not actually triggering discard abilities. Will run this once I start accepting theft in my Cube, which is coming.
Boisterous Clique is way better than Vendillion Clique, which is good because I recently had to take Clique out. It's also better in Black, honestly. I'd almost always rather make my opponent get a Mind Stone on turn 3+ than a normal card, even if they can just cash it out quickly. Really, it's pretty close to being printed as-is.
Sparks Ablaze is a great shock variant. The memory issues aren't terrible, and it signifies a big red walker strategy.
Etali, Primal Garden is silly. It think it's totally fine without the Actualize ability, which in Cube is often going to be flavor text anyways. It feels like a good green companion to the red Etali, Primal Conqueror in function. It captures the randomness/fun, and I'd definitely play this over something like Titan of Industry. I think it's slightly worse, sure, but way more exciting. Obviously not as good as Vaultborn Tyrant, but in a Cube of my size, I can handle more a few 7-drops in the color that loves 7-drops.
The issue is playing with it basically amounts to playing with a custom card for the wrangling you have to do in person. With 219 dinosaurs in Magic, it's not practical to have literally all of them, but a sideboard of 25 or so representative dinosaurs in their own unique sleeves is not that bad and it's really fun for a top-end card. But again, now it feels like we're playing with custom cards. I don't mind so much if there's an official WotC version of it printed out, but I'm a bit hesitant to do it myself still.
@LadyMapi is 100% right, this should have just been a prepared creature, and if it were, nearly every one of us would have been beyond stoked to include it in our Cubes.
Potential Horizon is the most busted of the cards in this set, and the best fetch land they've ever printed. The small rule about "not asking players to remember who went first on later turns" is so inconsequential and not that hard to remember, even if you're not planning on having to remember it, that I just want them to print this card. Print it now, WotC. Give me the Secret Lair.
For me the main issue with Woko is that I love Gideon of the Trials and they fill a similar role.
I also know that, objectively, that this is worse than Lurrus but it does feel brutal.
It sucks that the first ability is such a pain to track, because I agree the second one is quite cool.
Valgavoth, the Lifeline makes me so mad, because I'd kill for this ability just with the second ability. A 2/4 flier for 3 that lets you cast creatures from your graveyard whenever you gain life? That's exactly what my Cube is trying to do. I don't need the perpetual ability here to feel like this is a solid Cube card. I hope they make a paper equivalent of this at some point, this is a great combination of abilities and stats.
I also know that, objectively, that this is worse than Lurrus but it does feel brutal.
I may end up playing this. Maybe it's finally time.
And hey, then I can play this, too.
Hell yeah.